The present invention relates to open office plans and the like.
The efficient use of building floor space is an ever-growing concern, particularly as building costs continue to escalate. Open office plans have been developed to reduce overall officing costs, and generally incorporate large, open floor spaces in buildings that are equipped with modular furniture systems which are readily reconfigurable to accommodate the ever-changing needs of a specific user, as well as the divergent requirements of different tenants. One arrangement commonly used for furnishing open plans includes movable partition panels are detachably interconnected to partition off the open spaces into individual workstation and/or offices. Such partition panels are configured to receive hang-on furniture units, such as worksurfaces, overhead cabinets, shelves, etc., and are generally known in the office furniture industry as “systems furniture”. Another arrangement for dividing and/or partitioning open plans includes modular furniture arrangements, in which a plurality of differently shaped, freestanding furniture units are positioned in a side-by-side relationship, with upstanding privacy screens attached to at least some of the furniture units to create individual, distinct workstations and/or offices. Both of these types of modular furniture systems, as well as others, have been widely received due largely to their ability to be readily reconfigured and/or moved to a new site, since they are not part of a permanent leasehold improvement.
At present, some types of furniture systems utilize vertical rows of slots to support hang-on furniture units. Also, systems have been developed that utilize horizontal rows of slots for supporting hang-on furniture units such as storage units, worksurfaces and the like. Existing furniture systems commonly include cover panels that are attached to a partition frame to close off the frame and provide visual and audio privacy for the worker. However, existing furniture systems may not provide sufficient flexibility to permit the location of the hang-on furniture units to be readily adjusted. Furthermore, positioning of the cover panels on existing systems may be problematic.
Considerable efforts have been made to provide the users of such furniture systems with power and/or data connections for users of the system. Existing systems typically include worksurfaces that are utilized to support various accessories such as phones, computer monitors, printers and the like. In general, the worksurfaces must be relatively large to support such equipment, such that the overall size or “footprint” of the workspace for a given user will be quite large. The relatively large footprint requires more floor space, leading to more cost per user.